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>You can try as hard as you want to get a job - if no one is hiring, you aren't going to get one. True as far as it goes, and I too am concerned about the futu

>You can try as hard as you want to get a job - if no one is hiring, you aren't going to get one. True as far as it goes, and I too am concerned about the future of work, but I'm skeptical that we have ever seen, or will ever see, a future in which "no one is hiring". Today, there is tremendous demand for certain occupations, even as others are being hollowed out. The difference from historical expectations is that the rate of change between who was hiring last year and who will be hiring next year is growing, and quickly. People "trying hard" to get jobs in technology almost certainly can do so. People "trying really, really, really hard" to get jobs in heavy manufacturing in the American midwest are probably going to have a hard time (as are would-be blacksmiths, weavers, scribes, typists, telephone operators and many others). Said another way: the direction of the "hard work" vector is more important than the magnitude. Said still another way: "work smarter, not harder". Said yet one more way: "make something people want."

djhn 11y ago
> Said yet one more way: "make something people want." Or for a less general form, more aimed at the future employee than the self-starter: develop skills to produce what people need.
FilterSweep 11y ago
> Today, there is tremendous demand for certain occupations, even as others are being hollowed out. While that is true, these certain occupations tend to have a skillset or a depth of knowledge that most (not all) "classical" (here used as non-STEM) educations do not provide. As we progress forward, it becomes legitimately disingenuous to put green-behind-the-ears college students on an academic path that will undoubtedly lead them to unemployment at the end of that road. And I hate to break it to you, even occupations that still enjoys a demand in hiring such as software / native-app engineering / web development are also to become more scarce as greater droves of students enter these fields and a global economy allows employers to find offshore work for cheaper. > People "trying hard" to get jobs in technology almost certainly can do so. People "trying really, really, really hard" to get jobs in heavy manufacturing in the American midwest are probably going to have a hard time (as are would-be blacksmiths, weavers, scribes, typists, telephone operators and many others). At what point do you begin to discredit everyone incapable of getting a job with "you aren't trying hard/smart enough" ? This is a bit of a hypothetical question - I'm not taking shots at your argument, but its something that is very important to ask of ourselves and of others.
superuser2 11y ago
>there is tremendous demand for certain occupations The problem is that if you redirect all youth into these occupations, you will likely find yourself with more supply than demand. Software engineers are well-paid, well-treated, mobile, etc. because there are relatively few of them. This will not be the case when the default state of any 18-year-old is to become a software engineer.
- dropit_sphere 11y ago
  And we know this because that is precisely what we got with college graduates.
mikepurvis 11y ago
I get nervous the way an argument like this makes efficiency a goal unto itself. Is that really what we want the future of society to be? Billions of software engineers, interspersed with some baristas, janitors, and gig economy workers scraping by? Part of the point of BI schemes is to free up huge swathes of people to legitimately pursue the arts in all forms. Putting on dramas, creating music, learning for its own sake, philosophizing, cleaning up the environment, editing Wikipedia, working on open-source, etc... none of these things contribute much immediate economic value, but they do, I believe, make society incrementally wealthier in a way that creating the next derivative iOS game just doesn't. The whole business of college as job-training vs. learning to think is an interesting one. There was a great piece on it in Harpers recently: http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/?single=1 http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/?sing...
collyw 11y ago
Just like I hear there is a huge demand for software engineers from the taxi driver in Dublin. "Well my mate says he can find them, but they want too much money". I have a couple of payrises in the last ten years, the only reason I earn more is by switching jobs.

djhn 11y ago

> Said yet one more way: "make something people want." Or for a less general form, more aimed at the future employee than the self-starter: develop skills to produce what people need.

FilterSweep 11y ago

> Today, there is tremendous demand for certain occupations, even as others are being hollowed out. While that is true, these certain occupations tend to have a skillset or a depth of knowledge that most (not all) "classical" (here used as non-STEM) educations do not provide. As we progress forward, it becomes legitimately disingenuous to put green-behind-the-ears college students on an academic path that will undoubtedly lead them to unemployment at the end of that road. And I hate to break it to you, even occupations that still enjoys a demand in hiring such as software / native-app engineering / web development are also to become more scarce as greater droves of students enter these fields and a global economy allows employers to find offshore work for cheaper. > People "trying hard" to get jobs in technology almost certainly can do so. People "trying really, really, really hard" to get jobs in heavy manufacturing in the American midwest are probably going to have a hard time (as are would-be blacksmiths, weavers, scribes, typists, telephone operators and many others). At what point do you begin to discredit everyone incapable of getting a job with "you aren't trying hard/smart enough" ? This is a bit of a hypothetical question - I'm not taking shots at your argument, but its something that is very important to ask of ourselves and of others.

superuser2 11y ago

>there is tremendous demand for certain occupations The problem is that if you redirect all youth into these occupations, you will likely find yourself with more supply than demand. Software engineers are well-paid, well-treated, mobile, etc. because there are relatively few of them. This will not be the case when the default state of any 18-year-old is to become a software engineer.

dropit_sphere 11y ago
And we know this because that is precisely what we got with college graduates.

mikepurvis 11y ago

I get nervous the way an argument like this makes efficiency a goal unto itself. Is that really what we want the future of society to be? Billions of software engineers, interspersed with some baristas, janitors, and gig economy workers scraping by? Part of the point of BI schemes is to free up huge swathes of people to legitimately pursue the arts in all forms. Putting on dramas, creating music, learning for its own sake, philosophizing, cleaning up the environment, editing Wikipedia, working on open-source, etc... none of these things contribute much immediate economic value, but they do, I believe, make society incrementally wealthier in a way that creating the next derivative iOS game just doesn't. The whole business of college as job-training vs. learning to think is an interesting one. There was a great piece on it in Harpers recently: http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/?single=1 http://harpers.org/archive/2015/09/the-neoliberal-arts/?sing...

collyw 11y ago

Just like I hear there is a huge demand for software engineers from the taxi driver in Dublin. "Well my mate says he can find them, but they want too much money". I have a couple of payrises in the last ten years, the only reason I earn more is by switching jobs.